It was a mix of some good and a whole lot of bad in the Bronx over the past two days. As we all know, the Orioles lost both their games to the Yankees during their series this week.
Tuesday’s game was rained out.
Starting pitcher Chris Tillman was just plain bad on Wednesday giving up six runs – all earned – in 1 2/3 innings of work and the offense was just dead. That’s all we can say. It was just not a good effort by Tillman.
He looked like he was just going through the motions on the mound, kept his pitches in the zone and against a strong New York lineup, that’s not going to get the job done. On the other hand, Brad Bergssen pitched two scoreless innings and struck out two in a relief role. I believe he will be starting on Sunday.
However, on Thursday Jake Arrieta was much, much better and so was the Oriole offense.
They tagged Yankee starter Phil Hughes for five runs, chased him out in the fifth inning and had a 5-0 lead; meanwhile, Jake Arrieta gave up three runs in five innings and did a good job overall against one of the toughest lineups in the sport.
Then, things fell apart. The bullpen could not hold things together and Thursday’s game began to unravel. Badly.
Jason Berken came into game in a relief role and gave up a RBI-groundout to Russell Martin and then with Orioles up 5-4, closer Kevin Gregg – on his first pitch of his outing – helped the Yankees tie the game as Jorge Posada homered.
Nick Swisher hit a sacrifice fly to right to win the game in the tenth off an awful Michael Gonzalez on the mound.
While watching on MASN, I had to avert my eyes from the TV when I saw Gonzalez pitching. He walked the first guy, allowed a hit and just looked out of sorts.
It’s pretty obvious to me that the Orioles are not pushovers any more, but they won’t get to the next setup unless the pitching improves and they close against their opponents.
Wednesday’s game can be excused, Tillman may have had a bad night and every pitcher had one of those; however, the Orioles had no business losing against the Yankees like that – or anyone, for that matter.
Tonight, Zach Britton faces a challenge as he tries to snap the Orioles four-game skid against the surging Cleveland Indians.
It should be interesting to see how Britton does with some pressure on him.
